


Sunshine, Here We Come

by woodenducks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean/Cas Tropefest 5k Mid-Winter Challenge (Supernatural), First Kiss, Fluff, Holidays, Love Confessions, M/M, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28731939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodenducks/pseuds/woodenducks
Summary: When an impending blizzard threatens to keep Dean and Castiel snowed in, Cas suggests they travel somewhere warmer. And it's summer in the southern hemisphere, right?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76
Collections: Dean/Cas Tropefest 2021 Mid-Winter 5k





	Sunshine, Here We Come

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm from Australia, I don't know anything about actual winters. I'm just here eating mangoes and drinking tinnies and sitting in front of a pedestal fan waiting til the humidity goes away in...April. 
> 
> So I took this opportunity to basically write an ode to one of my favourite places in the world: Noosa National Park. 
> 
> Thanks to [thisisaboutnotbeinginclass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisaboutnotbeinginclass) for the beta.

Dean kicks the motel door shut behind him as he steps into the shabby room, his arms laden with plastic bags of snack food--whatever had been available at the poorly stocked gas station down the block--and a couple of six-packs of shitty beer.

“There’s nothing left,” he says, placing the bags on the kitchenette counter. “Must be all cleaned out with the blizzard warning.”

Cas looks up from where he’s crouched in front of the room’s rusty radiator.

“No luck with that either?” Dean asks, nodding at the stubborn appliance.

“No luck,” Cas says. “I don’t know why it won’t respond to my grace. I can keep you warm, though, if you’d let me.”

Dean shakes his head. “Nah, man. I don’t need you to burn through your juice just for that.”

“I won’t ‘burn through’ anything,” Cas says, with awkward finger quotes and all.

Outside, the wind howls.

“Here,” Dean says, nudging Cas out of the way. “Let me take a look.”

Cas dutifully shuffles over and Dean settles down in front of the radiator, which is silent and still and cold as a corpse. The chill from the wind and snow outside is definitely seeping under the door and the cracks in the windows. Dean feels a sense of defeat settle over his shoulders.

“How long is this weather going to last?” he asks, frustrated.

“A week. Maybe more,” Cas says.

Dean blanches. He really, really doesn’t want to be trapped here with Cas. Stuck in a single room with nowhere to go, nothing to do but stoically ignore certain _feelings_ that he’d rather not cop to having.

Cas looks at the two bags of snack food lying on the kitchen counter. “There’s no way we’re going to make it that long without…”

“Killing and eating each other?” Dean grins.

“Something like that,” Cas says with a small smile.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve got options. The roads are gonna be blocked for days, and even if they weren’t, there’s no way Baby is equipped to deal with this sort of weather.”

Cas hums, thoughtful. “There might be options, you know.”

Dean snorts. “Like what?”

“Like I could take us somewhere else. Somewhere that’s not freezing cold and unpleasant and unsafe.”

“Angel Airways, huh?” Dean asks with a grimace.

“I’ll be careful,” Cas says. “Think about it.”

Dean does think about it, his thoughts accompanied by the icy wail of the wind beating itself against the windows of their room. He looks outside and sees nothing but white.

“Well,” he says. “I did always want to get my toes in some warm sand.”

Cas smiles fully, his face lighting up. “I know just the place.”

***

Dean’s warm. He’s warm, and sun-drenched, and--despite the uncomfortable roiling in his stomach that accompanies Cas taking him as a passenger on a celestial transcontinental flight--surprisingly calm. He cracks his eyes open and is immediately overwhelmed by the bluest sky he’s ever stood under. The air smells like salt and he can hear the faint churn of surf somewhere off to his right.

“Where are we?” he asks.

They’re standing on a small, empty road, the hot asphalt sprinkled with white sand. Squat timber houses line the street, and he looks at the small, white cottage in front of them, with its wide casement windows and corrugated tin roof.

“Australia,” Cas says.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re in Noosa, Australia. Sunshine Beach.”

Dean doesn’t really know what to say. Thankfully, Baby is parked on the verge nearby, snow already melting off her and sliding onto the sandy gravel in chunks, so he doesn’t have to get mad at Cas for leaving her behind. But still, t his wasn’t what he expected, precisely. “Uhhh, why?”

“Because it’s summer in the southern hemisphere, and I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“Again: why?”

“Because there’s a charmingly named rock formation called Hell’s Gates, and I thought you’d appreciate the irony,” Cas deadpans.

“For real?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Actually, yes, for real. But mostly because you wanted a beach. And so here we are.”

Dean nods, slowly, looking around. Australia, huh? Well...shit. A small, childish part of him expects everything to be upside down.

“It’s...nice?” he tries.

“Come on,” Cas says, plucking Dean’s sleeve between his fingers and dragging him down the path of the cottage. Dean lets himself be pulled, ignoring the way his stomach flips a little at the contact. At the front door, Cas stoops and lifts the doormat, scooping a key off the wooden slats of the verandah.

“Whoa, there, buddy,” Dean says. “I know I’m not always Johnny Law, but do you really want to start breaking and entering right off the bat?”

“I’m not,” says Cas, fitting the key into the lock. “It’s an AirBNB.”

He pushes the door open and sweeps his arm in a gesture for Dean to enter.

“Who the fuck taught you about AirBNB?” Dean mutters as he steps into the cottage.

***

The house is small but bright, with wide windows and light timber floors. Ceiling fans spin lazily in the lounge room and kitchen, and Dean notes with enthusiasm the large gas-burner stove. He drops his bag next to the tan sofa in the lounge room and shrugs off his jacket and his overshirt.

“It’s hot here,” he notes, already wishing he had some shorts.

“There’s a second-hand clothing store not far from here, we can go and get some more appropriate attire,” Cas says, taking off his trench coat and rolling up his sleeves. Dean tries not to stare at the warm skin of Cas’s forearms.

“Okay,” he says, simply. There’s something in the air here already, something warm and sleepy and _easy_ that just makes him want to let go, to shrug it all away and just see what happens when he doesn’t have a constant death grip on the fraying edges of his life.

They lock the front door behind them and head down the quiet street, which turns onto a quiet stretch of shops and cafés heading down towards a park. The deep blue of the ocean is just visible through the treeline at the bottom of the street.

The second-hand store has the same smell as those in America, and Dean picks through the racks of clothing until he finds a couple of pairs of cargo shorts and a handful of inoffensive t-shirts. Cas comes out of the change room wearing board shorts printed with pink flamingos and a white t-shirt that says “Crikey!” and has a picture of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter on it. Something glitches in Dean’s brain, but he just pats Cas on the shoulder and tells him: “Great choice, buddy.”

Cas’s skin feels warm beneath the single layer of cotton, more raw and real than anything he’d ever felt before through layers of trench coat and suit jacket. He tries not to let his fingers linger, pulling his hand away before leading Cas to the checkout to pay for their clothes.

Everything feels better in shorts and sandals. The sandals, made largely of worn leather straps, feel very uncool, until Dean realises how comfortable they are, and how far away he is from anyone he knows who might judge his footwear choices. Cas is wearing honest-to-god reef sandals, and Dean can’t look at him without a big warm bloom of affection suffusing his chest.

***

It’s still early in the afternoon, so they leave their heavy, weather-inappropriate clothes in the cottage and head back towards the beach. At the end of a wooden walkway, the sand spreads out in a warm, white blanket. The ocean, up close, is turquoise and clear, the waves playful and non-threatening. The beach is busy, with families and couples and all sorts of people ducking in and out of the water between a set of red and yellow flags.

Dean takes two steps onto the sand and then stops. Cas stops next to him, instinctively matching his movements.

“Everything okay?” Cas asks as a gull wheels overhead.

“Yep,” Dean says, taking a moment. He breathes in deeply, letting the salty air fill his lungs. He kicks off his sandals and feels his toes worm their way into the warm sand. Cas did this for him. Cas brought him here, because he wanted this. He slides his recently purchased sunglasses down over his eyes, hiding the dampness that’s threatening to gather there.

The sand is soft beneath his feet. Actually, he realises quickly, the sand is really fucking hot. Hissing, he hops along the beach to a shady spot under a weathered little tree near the dunes, sitting down where it’s thankfully cooler. Cas takes a seat on the sand next to him.

“So what’s with the flags?” Dean says, nodding towards the swimmers.

“It’s a mandated safe area, monitored by the life guards,” Cas says.

“Huh. Guess they take that stuff seriously here.”

“They do it back home as well, Dean.”

“Oh.” Dean feels ignorant, suddenly, and kind of ashamed that he’s forty fucking years old and has never spent a day at the beach, so he doesn’t know what life guards do outside of Baywatch, which he knows better than to confuse with reality. What the fuck has his life even been?

“Thought they just saved people from sharks” he bluffs, covering it up with a joke.

“Sharks aren’t as dangerous as people think,” Cas says. “The life guards more commonly watch for currents and rips, and other dangers.”

“I never realised that taking a dip was such a hazard.”

“It’s not,” Cas says, reassuringly. “Have you ever been in?”

“The ocean?” Dean asks, like it’s not obvious.

Cas nods.

“Nah,” says Dean.

“You should try it,” Cas says. “The water will be warm. And it’s perfectly safe.”

Dean looks out at the water, the depth of it, the impossible infinity of it as it stretches out towards the horizon. He imagines the waves dragging him in, and runs his fingers through the sand next to him, letting the soft grains spill between his fingers, smooth as silk.

“Maybe later,” he says.

Cas shrugs and stands. “Suit yourself,” he says, before kicking off his shoes and stripping off his t-shirt, which he drops it in an undignified heap on Dean’s face. He strides out towards the water, and Dean watches him as he goes, staring agog at the rippling muscles of Cas’s broad back. How long has he been hiding that under all those layers? Dean shakes his head and pulls his jaw back up off the ground, then lies back on the sand and closes his eyes.

He’s woken up by Cas looming over him, dripping fat drops of salt water over his face, and realises he must have drifted asleep, lulled by the soothing susurration of the waves and the warmth of the afternoon.

“Blurgh?” he says, intelligently.

“It’s getting late,” Cas says, and Dean notices for the first time that the sun has started to sink, the beach crowd thinning out and the heat of the afternoon starting to dissipate.

“How long were you out there?” he asks.

Cas shrugs. “A few hours. It’s incredible.”

“Is it now?” Dean brushes at some grains of sand on his shorts.

“It is. You should come with me next time.”

He looks up at Cas, who’s six feet of tanned skin and bright smile standing over him, hair streaming wet, body firm and toned like every fantasy Dean’s ever repressed in his miserable life.

“Uh, sure,” he manages. He clears his throat. “What’s for dinner around here?”

Dinner, it turns out, is mountains of giant shrimp (“king prawns”, the menu says), potato salad and pale ale at a small restaurant overlooking the water. It’s casual and friendly and unhurried, and Dean feels himself relax further into the wicker chair as the evening carries on.

When they get back to the cottage, it’s after dark and the crickets are chirping loudly in the trees outside. Dean wends his way to the bedroom and flops down onto the crisp white sheets with a sigh, all loose-limbed and easy from the beer and the sun. Then he feels the mattress dip beside him, and he whips his head up to see Cas stretching out on the bed next to him.

“So, I may have made a miscalculation with the booking,” Cas says, not meeting Dean’s eye.

“Meaning?”

“This is the only bed.”

Dean’s face flushes as some the pages of some well-thumbed daydreams-- _oh, there’s only one bed in this motel, well, I suppose we’ll just have to share_ \--flash in the front of his mind. He pushes them down.

“I’ll go sleep on the couch,” he says, face red. He grabs a pillow and stalks out to the lounge room, ignoring the soft way that Cas says his name as he goes. He sleeps fitfully under the breeze of the ceiling fan.

***

The next morning dawns clear and bright, and Dean wakes to the smell of brewing coffee coming from the kitchen. He sits up and rubs his eyes looking over to where Cas is setting a French press to steep on the counter.

“No coffee machine,” Cas says, gesturing to the press.

“Ugh, how do they live?”

He ignores the way the coffee tastes better--marginally, he assures himself--than anything he’s ever made in a coffee machine, even the good one in the bunker.

“So what’s the plan today?” he asks, whisking eggs in a bowl. The place had come stocked with a few basics, but they were going to have to brave the grocery store before too long.

“I thought we could go for a walk,” Cas says.

“Okay.”

“A hike, really.”

“Come on, man,” Dean starts to complain, spooning butter into the pan heating on the stovetop. “Really?”

“Really,” Cas says, solemnly. “I did actually want to show you Hell’s Gates. There’s a beautiful walk just along the headland here.”

Dean remembers the beach he saw yesterday, the purity of the sand, the blue of the water. He doesn’t think it can get better than that. But Cas took him here. Cas wants to show him.

“Okay,” he says, grabbing two plates from the cupboard under the bench. “We’ll go.”

***

If he’d thought that the view couldn’t get better than the pristine calm of Sunshine Beach yesterday, Dean is man enough to admit that he was wrong. After grumbling his way up a couple of hundred steps carved into the steep rock of the headland, he stops to catch his breath at the top and looks back down the beach, stretching white and wide for miles down towards the south. The sky is pure and blue and open above them, with the endless ocean laid out below, glittering in the sunlight that’s burning the skin on the back of his neck. It’s hot, even though it’s early. He feels a trickle of sweat slip between his shoulder blades and soak into his shirt at the small of his back.

“Woah,” he says, like that syllable can even hope to encapsulate the goddamn majesty before him.

“It’s quite a view, isn’t it?” Cas asks, stopping next to Dean. Dean thinks he sees Cas’s eyes linger on his face for a long second before turning back out to the horizon, but he can’t be sure.

“It’s amazing.”

“Come,” says Cas. “There’s more.”

He leads Dean over the rocks to the lookout at Devil’s Kitchen, the sea stretching out like an impossible aquamarine bath in all directions. They follow the trail, thankfully down the steps this time, to a long stretch of white sand. Cas kicks off his sandals to walk easier along the waterline, and Dean follows suit.

The beach is pure and clean, with no rocks, no shells, no jellyfish. Just the quiet clear waves and a relatively high tide. It’s not busy, either: there are a couple of other hikers up ahead, but it’s otherwise empty. Dean keeps his feet out of the water, staying on the firmly packed sand left by the receding tide. He chats with Cas, softly, idly, as they cover the half-mile of sand, one foot after the other until--

“Jesus, fuck!” Dean exclaims, stopping in his tracks as a naked old man steps proudly down the sand.

“Don’t stare, Dean, it’s rude,” Cas says.

The old man, who’s just flopping around everywhere, Dean thinks with horror, crosses their path on his way into the water. “G’day,” he says, then strides into the sea. His tanned, wrinkly butt cheeks glisten in the sun as he dives beneath the calm water.

“What the fuck was that?” Dean asks, fighting the urge to laugh or point or do something worse.

“This is a nude beach,” Cas says casually.

“Huh?”

“A beach where people can freely be naked and enjoy nature.”

“What?”

“Why is this a difficult concept for you?”

“Is it...legal?”

Cas shrugs. “Yes and no. This is a well-known spot for it. We can come back later if you want,” he says, smiling slyly.

“Ugh, no, thank you,” Dean says, shaking his head.

“Prude.”

They continue along the beach, Dean keeping his eyes above waist height in case any more old man dicks walk into his field of vision. Before long they reach the edge of the beach and the wooden walkway that leads up to the trail over the next cliff.

At the top of the cliff is a large split in the rock. Ocean waves crash with remarkable force down the channel created by the eroded rock. They stop at the top, looking down at the suddenly roiling sea, juxtaposed with the calmness of the surf down on the beach they’d just crossed.

“Is this it?” Dean asks.

“Hell’s Gates,” Cas says.

“I remember it differently,” Dean mutters, picking at the hem of his shirt. The truth is that he doesn’t remember the gates of hell, not really. He remembers the stink of the pit, the noise and the pain and the heat. He remembers the piercing light when Cas found him. But he doesn’t remember the gates. He supposes that if they were anything they’d be more metaphysical than literal. Not like this. This is nature, and beauty, and the cleansing power of the sea. This is angry water, sure, but this is nothing-- _nothing_ \--like hell.

Cas lays a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy.

“Come on,” he says. “There might be dolphins up ahead.”

Dean’s not going to get excited about the prospect of dolphins. He’s a forty-year-old man, for crying out loud.

***

“Holy shit, Cas! Did you see that! Fucking--dolphins, man!”

Cas just smiles, places his hand on Dean’s shoulder again--this time it’s possibly to stop him from falling over the cliff edge in his excitement as a pod of dolphins dart out of the water below.

***

They follow the trail for a while longer, down and around to a small, wide bay. Cas motions to Dean to follow him off the path and down onto the rocks below. They step carefully over boulders to the soft white sand along the water, removing their shoes and dodging a couple of stray crabs that are hurrying to get out of their way.

“This is Tea Tree Bay,” Cas says, dropping his bag on a fallen tree trunk set back from the water’s edge. It’s so quiet here; the bay is sheltered from the breeze and the surf. The water is impossibly still and clear ahead of them, and the sand is white and clean beneath their feet. There’s no one else in sight.

“Do you want to come for a swim?” Cas asks, already shucking his shirt. Dean’s brain fritzes.

“Don’t we need those guys? The life guards?”

Cas shrugs. “It’s very shallow here. And safe. And I can protect you.”

Dean nods slowly, doesn’t let that last bit settle too heavily upon him. “Okay,” he says. “Maybe I’ll come in just a bit.”

Cas smiles wide, and then promptly removes his shorts, standing in his underwear. Dean’s brain full-on short-circuits.

“I don’t want to keep hiking in wet clothes,” Cas explains.

Dean thinks about rolling his eyes and making a scene, but for once in his life he lets himself relax. Just for a moment. After all, it’s safe here, and they’re alone. He slips out of his own outer layers, leaving on his boxer briefs. It’s hot, and the sun is high in the sky. He’s going to burn if he’s out there for too long, so at least he figures he has an excuse if he doesn’t like it in the water.

The water is warm when he steps into it, like a bath. He wades in up to his knees and stays there, watching as small fish dart around his feet, feeling the rippled sand pushed by the tides beneath his feet. It feels...nice. Really nice. Cas strides past him, out to where the water’s waist deep, before diving under the waves. Dean has a brief flash of the Leviathan bullshit, that fucking lake, seeing Cas slip beneath the water and disappear, and he feels his heart rate start to pick up before--it’s fine. Cas resurfaces, flips to float on his back, grinning at Dean from mere feet away. He beckons with one hand, before turning to swim out further into the water.

Dean can’t quite make himself dive into the water, but he does wade out to mid-thigh, where he stops and stands, breathes the clean air, and lets the breeze push his hair back from his face.

***

He sleeps well that night, tired from the walk and the sun. He thinks about putting up a fuss and sleeping on the couch again like a martyr, but...the bed is comfortable, and clean, and welcoming, and--as Cas points out--more than big enough for both of them. So he tucks himself up under the sheets, clutches an overstuffed throw pillow to his chest, and falls asleep.

***

The next morning, they sleep late. When they wake up, the sun is well into the sky, so they head out to one of the small cafés on the main street. Dean stares at the coffee menu, confused.

“What the hell is a ‘flat white’?” he asks, his voice probably too loud.

“It’s a coffee made with steamed milk,” Cas explains. “You should try it.”

“I think I’ll just have--”

“I swear to god, if you try to order an Americano, I will end you,” Cas says.

Dean snaps his mouth shut.

“It’s called a long black here, anyway,” Cas continues. “They take their coffee quite seriously.”

A waitress stops by their table. “Are you ready to order?” she asks.

“Yes,” says Cas, before Dean can complain. “Two flat whites and two smashed avo, please.”

“Right-o,” says the waitress before wandering off, and Dean wonders if this kind of relaxed attitude would fly back home.

“Do I want to ask what a ‘smashed avo’ is?” he asks. “It’s not like, just a smooshed avocado, is it?”

Cas regards him with mirth. “No, Dean. It is not.”

Dean thinks Cas is trying very hard not to laugh at him.

When their breakfast arrives, it is indeed smooshed avocado, but mixed with lemon juice and salt and pepper, and slathered onto thick slices of sourdough bread, topped with crumbled feta cheese and some sort of _slime_ that Cas tries and informs him is pomegranate molasses.

It’s amazing.

The rest of their day passes somewhat predictably, given their late start and Dean’s sore legs after the hike yesterday. They head down to the beach, spreading a picnic blanket Cas found in the cottage’s linen cupboard onto the sand in the shade. They spend long hours lounging there, Dean reading a Stephen King novel he’d plucked from the cottage’s bookshelves, Cas apparently deep in thought. Dean shuffles around trying to get comfortable, until he gives up and pillows his head on one of Cas’s muscular thighs. The rhythmic rush of the surf and the warmth of the air conspire to lull him into a soft sleep.

As he’s drifting off, he can feel Cas’s fingers start to card softly through his hair. He turns his head into the sensation, and feels, just slightly, something start to shift in him. It’s not cracking open like he’d long expected it to, but instead it’s being gently guided to light with the warmth of the sun, the sound of the ocean, the softness of the sand beneath him, and the surety of Cas’s hands.

It becomes easy, when he wakes up again, still sleep-warm and muddled, to reach a hand up and grab Cas’s wrist, to twist their fingers together, and, despite the insistent beating of his heart, hang on for dear life.

It’s even easier, after a steak dinner at the local surf club, after four or five of those locally brewed tropical ales--because _fuck it_ , Dean is _on holiday_ \--to take Cas’s hand between his own again on the walk back to the cottage, to reel him in at the doorway, to swallow down the rising fear that he knows is unfounded, and say: “You know, this has been a really great break and all, but I just wanted to tell you that…” before his courage fails him.

“Tell me what?” Cas asks.

Dean vacillates. He wavers. He swallows and looks at his hands, trembling faintly where they grasp at Cas’s shirt.

Finally, “I love you,” he says.

And just like that, it opens: the box that he’d pushed shut, then sat on, then jumped on until it closed firmly, then hammered secure with nails of repression and lack of self-worth, then chained fast and dropped into a bottomless ocean hoping to never see it again.

“I know,” says Cas, smiling.

The weight of it all lifts off Dean’s shoulders in an instant, and he immediately rolls his eyes. “I never should have let you watch those movies.”

“But because you should hear it,” Cas continues. “Because you should be told every moment of every day, I’m completely in love with you as well, and I adore every part of you. I always have, and I always will.”

“Guh,” Dean says, with dignity.

Still smiling at him with those deep, blue eyes, Cas says, “Even if you’re afraid of the ocean.”

Then he reels Dean in, and silences his rebuttal with the softness of his mouth.

***

The next morning dawns just as bright and warm as the others before it here in this part of the world. Dean shifts in bed, feeling the warmth of Cas’s arm slung over his waist, the heat of Cas’s body pressed up behind him. He rolls over, kisses Cas on the cheek, then prods him awake with a series of sharp pokes to his ribs.

“Cas, dude, wake up,” he hisses. “I want another flat white.”

***

After breakfast, Cas declares that he wants to go swimming at Alexandria Beach.

“The nudie beach?” Dean asks.

“Did you just say ‘nudie’?”

“I said what I said.”

Cas pretends to sigh, and picks up Dean’s hand and kisses across the knuckles.

“Yes, dear, the nudie beach.”

Dean’s stomach flips pleasantly at the endearment.

“Okay,” he says, disarmed.

They apply sunscreen then head up and over the cliffs again, Dean grumbling slightly less this time. He’s hot and sweaty by the time they reach the start of the sands, and he’s actually kind of tempted to get in the water and see if it’s as refreshing as it looks. They find a place near the treeline to stow their things, and then Cas is off, leaving his clothes in a messy puddle.

Dean thought it would be undignified, being _nude_ on a _public beach_ with _everything out_ for _everyone to see_ . But Cas makes it look...natural. Normal. Right. Cas looks like this is precisely how the human form should be: unfettered, unencumbered, graceful and powerful as he breaks into a jog, then a run, leaping over the water with a whoop before diving under the waves.

Well, shit. If it’s that good.

Dean doesn’t let himself stop to think. He just shimmies off his shorts and shirt, slips out of his boxers, and runs down to the water to join in.

The water is as warm and soft as a caress, although it’s saltier than he’d imagined it would be when it gets in his eyes and mouth. He gets dumped by a wave, gets sea water up his nose, grazes his foot on a rock. But he and Cas also paddle about, flick water at each other, float on the buoyant surface, and duck under waves. This is _fun_ , Dean realises, and he can let himself have it. It’s not often that he can relax like this, not ready to jump at the next shadow to shift in the corner of his eye, not waiting to fend off the next apocalypse. There’s just this: the water, the sand, the sun, and Cas.

They emerge from the water a couple of hours later, happy and loose. Dean’s skin is covered with a blanket of freckles, and he’s pretty sure he has a grin permanently stuck to his face. He’s gonna have a sunburnt ass later on in the afternoon, but right now he couldn’t care less.

Afterwards, back at Sunshine Beach, they have fish burgers for lunch from a small takeaway. The burgers are made with soft bread and slathered in aioli that runs down their wrists, and accompanied by cold ginger beer and thick-cut hot chips covered in something amazing called “chicken salt”. Cas nudges Dean’s foot with his own, then leans over to kiss aioli off the corner of Dean’s mouth.

“You know,” Cas says, “we still have the cottage for another week.”

Dean grins, leans in and tugs at the collar of Cas’s hideous Crocodile Hunter t-shirt.

“Well,” he says, kissing Cas softly. “We’d better make the most of it.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://woodenducks.tumblr.com/), where I will probably reblog Dean gifsets until the end of time.


End file.
